Denny Hamlin snatched the lead during a final pit stop under yellow and won at Darlington Raceway in overtime for his second consecutive Cup victory.
William Byron, who dominated the race, finished second, followed by Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney, who was leading with three laps remaining in the scheduled distance when the final caution flew for a spin by Kyle Larson.
Emerging from the pits with the lead ahead of Reddick and Byron, Hamlin easily led the final two-lap shootout. He won by 0.597 seconds in his No. 11 Toyota.
It’s his 56th career victory, putting him in sole possession of 11th on the all-time win list.
After winning last week at Martinsville Speedway to end a 31-race winless drought, Hamlin earned his 56th career victory to break a tie with Rusty Wallace for 11th on the all-time win list in NASCAR’s premier series.
“There’s two people I really love right now,” Hamlin, who led only twice for 10 laps, told FS1’s Regan Smith. “My pit crew and Kyle Larson. Had a little assist there, so thank you. The pit crew just did an amazing job. They won it last week. They won it this week. It’s all about them.”
Blaney fell from first to fourth on the last pit stop.
The Team Penske star, who earned his first career top five at Darlington in 18 starts, had chased down Reddick to take the lead in his No. 12 Ford on Lap 290 of a scheduled 293. He was less than 4 miles from his first win of the season when the caution flew for Larson, who appeared to be bumped by Bubba Wallace, Reddick’s teammate, when Larson slowed as Reddick slammed the wall after being passed for the lead by Blaney.
“Oh no,” Blaney said with a laugh when asked by FS1’s Jamie Little about the last stop. “I thought we had the race won, so I don’t really know. I’ll have to watch that replay of how that yellow came out and watch it back. We did a good job. Great strategy call of kind of running long and giving us time to run down (Reddick) and a lot of those guys that short-pitted. So it was a great call and great car.
The race winner thanked his pit crew and a competitor after his second consecutive victory.
“Just really fast and never really got to control the race. Nothing really went our way. Pit road, we have to work on a little bit, and the caution coming out during the cycle set us way back. So I felt like we just kept making up spots. I’m really proud of the 12 folks for giving me a fast car. It just wasn’t meant to be. I really would have liked to have won here, that would been really neat.”
Beginning the final green-flag cycle, Reddick pitted on Lap 240 of 297 and took the lead eight laps later in his No. 45 Toyota. That was as the strategy went awry for Byron, who led the first 243 laps on the 1.366-mile oval in his No. 24 Chevrolet.
Byron pitted on Lap 244 of 293, two laps behind Bell and four laps behind Reddick. After blending onto the track behind Reddick and Bell, Byron fell several seconds off the lead in third place.
“Just really proud of my team,” Byron told Little. “To bring that level of effort and preparation and have a car like that and for us to execute like that, it was looking like it was going to be a perfect race. We were going to lead every lap. So was really proud of that. Those guys could just be aggressive on the other side of the green-flag cycle, and we lost control there. And once we lost control, it was too late in the going to get back up there.”
Byron set a personal best for most laps led in a race while earning his fifth top 10 this year.
“It sucks,” the two-time Daytona 500 winner said. “I’m sure it’ll sting a lot tonight. There’s still a lot of positives. It stings in the moment for sure.”
Byron swept both stages by leading the first 185 laps. He became only the second driver since the advent of stage racing in 2017 to lead every lap of the first two stages. The Hendrick Motorsports star also became the first driver to win a stage at Darlington while leading wire to wire.
Stage 1 winner: Byron
Stage 2 winner: Byron
Next: Sunday, April 13, 3 p.m. ET at Bristol Motor Speedway on FS1
